It might happen, because it happened before with other movies and filmmakers. Okay, not every badly reviewed movie is a misunderstood masterpiece or the victim of a feud against the people behind the camera, but sometimes critics got their knives out before the first trailer hits. And frankly, this is the kind of vibe that I sensed with this movie for a while.

Personally I believe that Wachowski's will never have a hit even close to the size of the Matrix ever again. Matrix was something new (to the US market) at the time. It was a tight exciting action flick that made you also use your brain* here and there, which elevated it above just a kung fu movie. The next two Matixes (Matrixi? Matrixies?) were a bloated, convoluted mess that tried too hard, never coming close to capturing the magic of the first one (which I acknowledge is almost NEVER accomplished with any sequel to any film franchises). V for Vendetta was a niche film (for those comic book lovers) and couldn't possible relate to the general movie going public. Speed Racer...well, despite at least one Zoners fanatical love for this flick, for me it was interesting attempt at a new style of movie (comic bookey? art deco cocaine infused head trip?). And Cloud Atlas was going to be a hard sell regardless of who directed it based on the source material.

So I lost my train of thoought, but what I think I was headed to was the fact that MY OWN PERSONAL OPINION is that the studio knows these dudes( ) have a cult following, so they're pretty sure they can make some money off of them, but they are not tentpole/launch at the busiest time of the year movies. Jupiter Ascending looks like a fine mashup of a few sci fi films that we've already discussed here so no need to go into it again, but my point is that its not somethign that interests me at all as far as going to a theater to see. But when it makes its way to HBO, I'll eventually catch it.

it sure seems like an odd way to 'premiere' a film. a secret invitation-only screening at an indie film fest for a film targetted for the usual blockbuster sci-fi audience. it'd be like premiering the newest Tyler Perry movie at a KKK rally. it's almost guaranteed to generate bad word-of-mouth. either somebody at the studio has it out for this film and is trying to sabotage it, or whoever set up this screening is completely incompetent. and i have no interest or desire to see this film, but can't make sense of what they were trying to accomplish here by screening the film thisway.

Peven wrote:or maybe the movie is a convoluted mess as reported and that is why the studio decided to push back its release until the time of year that studios usually reserve for dumping bad movies......

Not saying that's not the case, but the hostility towards the movie from the moment the first trailer hit is also pretty telling.

"Everyone says, 'Why can't you be simpler?' We're drawn toward difficult subjects, like the disparity of rich and poor," Lana says. "We've been lucky. People at studios have been interested in our crazy, strange brand of complexity. And we've been allowed to keep making them. Will that continue? Probably not."

"Everyone says, 'Why can't you be simpler?' We're drawn toward difficult subjects, like the disparity of rich and poor," Lana says. "We've been lucky. People at studios have been interested in our crazy, strange brand of complexity. And we've been allowed to keep making them. Will that continue? Probably not."

Simon Riaux for écranlarge wrote:[Translated from French by Google. Edited for bad translation.]

After the undeserved failure of 'Cloud Atlas', it was feared that the Wachowskis' latest project, 'Jupiter Ascending', would be a run-of-the-mill blockbuster science fiction, designed to regain public favor and industry standing. These concerns have been rendered moot as the film is instead an earthquake of unexpected magnitude.

It takes less than half an hour for 'Jupiter Ascending' to bury all that Hollywood has produced for many years in this spectacular space opera. An incredible chase through the sky, sea and land arises from the first reel, whereby Channing Tatum confronts an over-armed squadron, leaving us speechless. And the stunning power only grows over the next two hours.

An epic radically devoid of dull moments, the Wachowskis take us through their inordinate ambition. Their interstellar canvas boggles the mind, as the work is full of astounding details revealing vistas that are deliriously arcane, every last neuron is absorbed with its invigorating wealth.

Opting for a linear storyline, the film's structure wrestles with an extremely dense narrative that results in an absolute rollercoaster ride; the filmmakers further amplify the impact of the film by saturating it with ideas and concepts, any of which could justify their own standalone film. Whether it's a touching scene where Terry Gilliam slips of mano-a-mano power, frantic proceedings that would even blush little guys from Pixar, or spatial dimensions games ever seen, one looks in vain for a fault, or bad taste. Even the look of Tatum becomes convincing and eventually brings a nice touch to this invulnerable warrior.

The characters are not left behind. Simple on paper, the characters are written with a consistency and an implacable logic, each driven by a force greater than themselves, causing them to transcend their condition, in good and evil, which makes issues instantly palpable, the central romance of the story, like the Herculean climax that concludes this filmic apotheosis.

With worldbuilding and a universe that gives the film an excellence that makes up for countless blockbuster products of franchises with an original idea given mainstream treatment, 'Jupiter Ascending' carries spectacle to a stratospheric level, an ambition that we had perhaps not seen since ... 1977.

VERDICT:A bewildering spectacle that burns every image onto the viewer's retina and embarks on a space epic of mythological proportions.

John Semley for macleans.ca wrote:WHAT ON EARTH ARE THE WACHOWSKIS UP TO NOW?Siblings reinvent the sci-fi blockbuster, with a perfectly Matrix-ian twist.

Leaving a Brooklyn mall in the spring of 1999, filmmaker Darren Aronofsky ('The Wrestler', 'Black Swan') was gripped by a sense of possibility. "I walked out of 'The Matrix'," he recalled in a 2006 Wired profile, "and I was thinking, 'What kind of science fiction movie can people make now?'"

The influence of 'The Matrix' -- directed by sibling duo Andy and Lana Wachowski -- would trickle down across the next decade of Hollywood filmmaking, from the clingy leather costumes in 'X-Men' to the slo-mo "bullet time" cinematography of 'Equilibrium' and 'Wanted', to the high-wire stunts of 'Charlie's Angels'. But more substantial attempts to answer Aronofsky’s "What’s next?" head-scratcher lay elsewhere: in films such as Richard Kelly's 'Southland Tales', Aronofsky’s own 'Noah' (a Biblical epic that played like a sci-fi apocalypse story), and the Wachowskis' own 'Speed Racer', 'Cloud Atlas' and, now, 'Jupiter Ascending'. "These movies are just super-unwieldy," says Peter Kuplowsky, senior programmer of the Toronto After Dark film festival. "They sometimes have too many ideas. But there’s something so sincere about them."

Over the past 15 years, the Wachowskis have shaped a "new ambitiousness" in blockbuster cinema: big-budget movies with big aspirations to match. Whatever shortages these films may possess, they can rarely be faulted for failure of imagination. "We seem not to be very good at making small things," co-director Lana told AP. "We keep saying, 'Let’s go make a small movie.' But then we always end up being enormously complex." Jupiter Ascending is nothing if not enormous. And "complex" is an understatement. Mila Kunis plays Jupiter Jones, a housecleaner swept into an intergalactic Cinderella story, when it's revealed she’s the reincarnation of an alien queen. She's carried into the cosmos by a disgraced half-human, half-wolf ex-military officer (Channing Tatum) -- decked out with anti-gravity rocket skates -- who wants to deliver Jupiter to one of three heirs in a sprawling galactic empire that harvests genetic material from planets in order to sustain the everlasting youth and beauty of its upper-crusters. It is, with due respect, exactly as silly as it sounds.

The film sees the Wachowskis indulging all of their artistic idiosyncrasies, be they pseudo-philosophical or just plain dorky (the movie’s cosplay-chic wardrobe). It also offers the latest variation on a theme they’ve been preoccupied with throughout their career, most obsessively in their unfairly maligned Hollywood expressionist lark 'Speed Racer': the deleterious effects of capitalism on the human soul. "'Speed Racer' was a complete takedown of big business," says Kuplowsky. "Yet they need Warner Brothers to fund it."

It may be hard to swallow the idea of monstrously budgeted, anti-capitalist studio filmmaking. As the feminist writer Audre Lorde noted, "The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house." But Wachowski believers hold it’s possible to offer sweeping social criticism at such a massive scale. "Because of the iconography of 'V For Vendetta'," says Kuplowsky, citing the Wachowski-written adaption of the cult comic, "we have Anonymous. We have the hacktivist movement. A generation saw this movie and was blown away. No matter how naive the politics were, it moved people to care about something."

This intense passion hums through 'Jupiter Ascending', a film that grounds its ideas and whiz-bang action scenes in very human characters. Where plenty of blockbusters make the humans feel incidental, gawking on the sidelines while transforming robots or ninja turtles get the action, the Wachowskis keep their characters centre stage. One action sequence exploding over the Chicago skyline seems to revolve around Kunis’s character; alien robots zip and explode around her.

Like other films of the New Ambitiousness, 'Jupiter Ascending' juggles too many balls, overstuffing its action with characters and sci-fi mythology. But, against the paint-by-numbers Marvel Studios outings (even last summer’s surprise hit 'Guardians of the Galaxy' felt like a redressed 'Avengers'-in-space), it feels vitally fresh and exciting. An overload of ideas, energy, ambition and dopey sincerity is always better than a paucity of the same.

Still, I'm happy that the "negative reviews" have plenty of positives in them.

And, speaking of positives, some of the positive reviews are very enthusiastic about the film. One of my favourites is this:

Drew Taylor for MovieFone wrote:At its best, "Jupiter Ascending" is wonderfully, breathlessly alive. There are moments of genuine, awe-inspiring beauty and it's full of the beautiful world-building that made "The Matrix" films so transformative. The Wachowskis are incredibly earnest filmmakers, sometimes to a fault, and they believe in what they're doing so completely. It's infectious and so completely at odds with the cold cynicism of most Hollywood productions and adds to the buoyantly fun, Saturday-afternoon serial feeling of the film, reminiscent of everything from "Flash Gordon" to "Star Wars." You can tell that they've lovingly pored over every frame.

[...]

"Jupiter Ascending" doesn't deserve to be dismissed; it's a genuine thrill, full of all sorts of things that you've never seen before and made by two uncompromisingly brilliant filmmakers who continue to push the boundaries of mainstream movies. Expand your universe, indeed.

It seems that, as long as people are willing to accept the sincerely silly tone of the film (i.e. as opposed to the sarcastic Guardians of the Galaxy), audiences will enjoy the hell out of Jupiter Ascending.

*puts on silly hat and crosses fingers*

----

Also, the Wachowskis have talked about the negativity surrounding both Jupiter Ascending and their careers in general:

The New York Times (Feb. 3) wrote:Wachowskis Unfazed by Negativity

"I've gotten a thicker skin when it comes to Internet searches on our art," said Andy matter-of-factly.

[...]

"There's directors like John Ford and Christopher Nolan who find a tone and stick with it throughout their careers," said Lana. "We're not like that. We're always looking for the range of what we see in life. That creates a tension between us and our audience because they don't know what to expect. It makes people excited, but it can also make for frustrated consumers."

The delay of "Jupiter Ascending" from a July to February release, as well as a surprise screening at Sundance where some audience members reportedly walked out, has raised questions whether the film will become a $175 million black hole for distributor Warner Bros. Lana likened the reshuffling of "Jupiter Ascending" to the studio's shifting of "Gravity" in 2013.

"The summer is built around familiarity," said Lana. "Many cultural critics who shape awareness for films are obsessed with sequels and derivative material. They wildly crave it. That kind of environment is hostile to originality. It only makes space for derivative material and rejects originality. I think Warner Bros. was uncomfortable with that environment."

For the Wachowskis, "Jupiter Ascending" isn't just another sci-fi flick. It's also an opportunity to stand up for fresh material at a time when studios are keener to greenlight sequels, reboots and adaptations. (Andy called the possibility of returning to "The Matrix" a "particularly repelling idea in these times.") It's yet another subject where the duo is united.

"The cultural obsession with equating a movie's success to its box office is incredibly damning to this industry," said Andy. "It's pushing the industry more and more to making pure product, which is another reason why you constantly have reboots. It's McDonald's. People know what they're going to sit down and watch. Inherently, it's unhealthy for your brain."

Whatever happens with "Jupiter Ascending," the siblings are deep into work on their next ambitious project: a mind-bending drama about eight mentally and emotionally linked strangers called "Sense8" that was filmed entirely on location in cities like San Francisco, Reykjavík, London, Berlin, Nairobi and Mumbai.

For that project, the Wachowskis won't have to worry about box office tallies. "Sense8" is a streaming Netflix series.

max314 wrote:It seems that, as long as people are willing to accept the sincerely silly tone of the film (i.e. as opposed to the sarcastic Guardians of the Galaxy), audiences will enjoy the hell out of Jupiter Ascending.

*puts on silly hat and crosses fingers*

Well this only makes sense if the filmmakers intended it to be "sincerely silly tone", right?

The Fifth Element had humor and silly built into its DNA. From the trailers I've seen of Jupiter Ascending, I don't get that vibe.

Moriarty wrote:"Jupiter Ascending" plays like someone hired Lana and Andy Wachowski to adapt a particularly crazy YA novel and they took the bones of the thing and ran with it. Fast, frequently teetering on the cusp of the ridiculous, and eye-poppingly pretty, "Jupiter Ascending" is a wicked slice of entertainment, and a heck of an antidote to the typical February box-office blahs.

Harry wrote:You see… There’s all sorts of rumors out there about Drew and I, but I still read everything he writes. Sometimes I feel he’s a grumpier old man than I am, and I think he’d probably agree with that, but one thing we’ve nearly always agreed on… it’s big insane science fiction.

Harry wrote:You see… There’s all sorts of rumors out there about Drew and I, but I still read everything he writes. Sometimes I feel he’s a grumpier old man than I am, and I think he’d probably agree with that, but one thing we’ve nearly always agreed on… it’s big insane science fiction.

I went and saw Jupiter Ascending last night and yeah, it was bad. The rumors are true. There are moments where if you squint you can kind of maybe see what the Wachowskis found interesting about the story, but still, bad. This is supposed to be a wacky send-up of consumerism in the vein of Brazil, but the only way that you would know this is because there's a Terry Gilliam cameo. Otherwise the film is not funny enough to work as satire, and it's too ridiculous to be taken seriously. There are lots of interchangeable chase scenes, interchangeable tracking shots of interchangeable giant ships appearing out of nowhere, and people running from one planet to the next accomplishing nothing much. Eddie Redmayne tries to give one of the all-time Great Bad Performances. He's still behind Sting in Dune and Cary Elwes in Saw, at least. But his henchmen look like extras from Super Mario Bros., so that's a couple points in his favor. So yeah. Bad. And this is coming from someone who likes everything they've made, besides for the Matrix sequels. This is easily their worst movie.

I've heard it being called everything from "One of the worst movies ever made!" to "The second coming of Star Wars!" If anything, this has further piqued my curiosity. It would appear that "No-one can be told what Jupiter Ascending is -- you have to see it for yourself"

However, there is at least one thing that is certain from the reviews: if you are ever considering seeing Jupiter Ascending at any point in your life, then YOU HAVE TO SEE IT ON THE BIG SCREEN!! Even if you dislike the film, it would seem that this is the only way to guarantee value for your money.

I saw this movie. I found it mostly unegaging. The only thing that I could call outright bad about it was Eddie Redmayne's performance as Nosferatu Lippenschtift, the film's main antagonist. It took me a bit of thinking to really put my finger on why I just never gave a shit about anything that was going on in this movie and the answer was kinda right there in plain sight: the main character.

The movie gives her this bizarre tragic backstory. Back in Russia, her father was shot during a home invasion. So her mum decided to illegally immigrate to USA because they don't have problems with gun violence there. In USA, she lives as a stateless slave cleaning toilets for pennies and I assume she never received any kind of formal education. I was willing to forgive that Mila Kunis plays this character with a level of poise, sophistication, and articulation that is completely out of step with her Oliver Twist background. What I found strange was that they didn't give her any of the traits typical of a hard life that would also make her a compelling lead such as resourcefulness, resolve, street smarts, a functioning bullshit detector, bluntness, or even any scrap. I mean, there's that one part where she knees Eddie Redmayne in the balls which I'm pretty sure is an homage to THE LEGEND OF BILLIE-JEAN, but other than that she spends almost the entire film in damsel-in-distress mode.

I think it also might've more interesting if they at least showed her as being somewhat seduced by the luxury that becomes available to her when she inherits the throne of queen of the galaxy or whatever. Maybe there's some nuance in Kunis's performance I'm not picking up on, but she doesn't seem the least bit tempted to cash in her winning genetic lottery ticket.

But even if the Wachowskis are afraid to show her in a negative light even for a moment, there should've come a point where she takes charge in some way and starts driving the movie instead of just reacting all the time.

As for the movie's portrayal of class conflict, I'm not sure if it's complex or just very poorly executed class-warrior propaganda. I strongly lean towards the latter though. I get the cheesy message they're going for, that love is the real treasure beyond any wealth. The film definitely paints the wealthy space dynasty as your typical two-dimensional vapid brats who are 'bad' people because they use force and deceit to secure resources that fund their decadent shallow lifestyles. The problem is with Jupiter's family. They're poor, so in a rich-bashing movie they should be shown have good values, right??? But her uncle whores her out as a slave, her cousin tries to sell her ovaries so that he can buy a television, her aunt slaps her while she's sleeping and tells her to wake up and make her coffee. The poor people are ten times more abusive and exploitive than the rich people and they're supposed to be the wholesome ones who are uncorrupted by extravagence???

So, I'm very disappointed that this isn't even a movie that is bad in some sort of memorable way. It's just weak and boring.

So this movie is about a worker drone who is disconnected from their life who is plucked from everyday existence and revealed to be a key player in a much larger game that uses humanity as a raw resource, but our central hero is the one person who may be perfectly primed to save humanity from their fate as an endcap product in a great galactic Target? OK, cool, where have we heard that before? It sounds so familiar, but we’re pretty sure this is an original story.

Jack Pooley wrote:If there’s one actor in the entire world who could be described as Hollywood’s cinematic punching bag, it’s Sean Bean, who has become infamous for dying in an overwhelming majority of the movies (and TV shows) in which he stars.It’ll be a surprise to most audiences, then, that he actually survives the events of the movie, despite it looking like he’ll bite the bullet on more than one occasion. For starters, he appears to turn bad half-way through the movie, which seems to blatantly set him up for a grisly, satisfying death later on, but when his true allegiance is revealed later, he’s given a reprieve and spends most of his remaining time on a ship away from the action.So, yep, the Wachowskis signed Bean to their movie and didn’t even give him a customarily awesome death scene send-off. That might be the biggest tragedy of all.

Charlie Jane Anders wrote:Jupiter Ascending has some of the most stunning visuals we've ever seen in a space opera. The movie's spaceships are just stunning, and unlike anything else in movies or elsewhere. We talked to lead designer George Hull, and he told us how Brutalist architecture and Siamese fighting fish influenced these ships.

We've featured Hull's artwork before — he worked on the Wachowskis' previous movie, Cloud Atlas, as well as Neill Blomkamp's Elysium, Amazing Spider-Man, and of course The Matrix. (Plus he has worked on development for Star Wars episode VIII.) Whether he's designing futuristic cities or weird spaceships, Hull has an incredible eye for form and architecture, and his designs for Jupiter Ascending are eye-popping.

Jupiter Ascending is exactly like The Matrix. Both Jupiter Ascending and the Wachowskis' paradigm-shifting chef-d'oeuvre finely stitch together comprehensively immersive universes from a polymathic range of interests and influences. Both films attempt to make sweeping commentaries about life, love, humanity and society. And both films wrap these ideas in comforting genre conventions, all whilst searing our eyeballs with audaciously dreamlike visuals.

Jupiter Ascending is, also, absolutely nothing like The Matrix. Where the films diverge is in their style and tone. Where The Matrix engineered a grimy, industrial aesthetic that reveled in rebellious cool, Jupiter Ascending celebrates its own silliness, pitching itself somewhere between the Wachowskis' cubist experiment Speed Racer (2008) and the Neo Seoul storyline in their pantheistic opus Cloud Atlas (2012).

The real question, then, is not: "Does Jupiter Ascending live up to The Matrix?" Rather, the question is: "Does Jupiter Ascending live up to its own ambitions?"

The short answer is: "Yes."

Set to a palette of unhinged imagination that evokes both Brazil (Gilliam, 1985) and Alejandro Jodorowsky's conceptual artwork for his conspicuously unproduced adaptation of Frank Herbert's 1965 novel, 'Dune', Jupiter Ascending has all the childish abandon of a Saturday morning cartoon show from the '80s, like ThunderCats or He-Man and the Masters of the Universe. It has just as many thrills and spills and excuses to giggle as something like the recent Guardians of the Galaxy (Gunn, 2014). Every action scene would end with a realisation that my fingernails were set deep into my palms; proof enough that the Wachowskis haven't lost their penchant for directing visceral action. And the Wachowskis haven't lost their penchant for crafting cool characters, either. The likes of Channing Tatum's wolf-spliced bounty hunter, Caine Wise, and Eddie Redmayne's flying dino-henchmen strut into the duo's Badass Hall of Fame with effortless swagger. Even the unfairly maligned Eddie Redmayne himself – dripping with disconcertingly Oedipal sensuality – has every chance of being remembered for an iconic performance, even if it's for all the wrong reasons.

Speaking of unfair malignment, the film's plot does not lack focus, despite myriad accusations to the contrary. The primary narrative and emotional drive of the film is that of Mila Kunis' regal recurrence wanting to re-unite with her family back on Earth, but being compelled instead to confront the cosmic duties that have been thrust upon her. This emotional anchor works because we actually care about Kunis' birth family, specifically her mother (Maria Doyle Kennedy), with whom she shares a genuine warmth and love in the film's opening reel. Their relationship pays off in the film's climax, and is arguably the real "love story" at the heart of the film.

It's not that Mila Kunis' refreshingly female-assertive romance with Channing Tatum doesn't work, because their chemistry crackles with endearing playfulness; but it ends up playing more like a subplot than the A-story, which may also be why some audiences were left emotionally distanced from the film. The other reason people may have felt distanced was the fast pace. When the credits roll, the audience feels like they just want more of everything – more of Caine's anti-gravity acrobatics, more of Jupiter's ostentatious wardrobe, more beautiful worlds for your eyes to feast on, more interplay with Tatum and Kunis, more backstory about Stinger's history, more Abrassax conspiracies... And yet, when you look back on the film, you realise that it was packed to bursting point with all of the above. As we swiftly follow Mila Kunis through a fascinating cross-section of the latest Wachowski-verse, the journey is perhaps a little too swift, a little too condensed. The positive is that there is plenty to mull over during repeated viewings – the jargon of Caine and Stinger, for example, evokes worlds and images in the way a novel might. The negative, however, is that audiences may have trouble settling into the groove of the story.

Jupiter Ascending would have pre-dated its contemporaries in space fiction, Guardians of the Galaxy and Interstellar (Nolan, 2014), had it not been pushed back several months from its original 2014 release date. There is a noteworthy comparison to be made by way of Jupiter Ascending taking the fun-but-vapid space cowboy genre conventions of the former, and combining it with the somber, socially aware commentary on human consumption and collonisation of the latter. The coincidence that these films occurred within approximately half a year of one another is a graphic confirmation of the Wachowskis' mission to combine high concept with high thinking. Perhaps even more importantly is the fact that Jupiter Ascending rejects both the realist mantra of Christopher Nolan and the reluctantly fantastical tone of James Gunn, choosing instead to use its outlandish budget to construct the most lavish cosmic phantasmagoria that we have ever seen. It is a graphic confirmation that the Wachowskis' sense of artistic exploration, in an industry that clings in terror to the status quo, is as awe-inspiring as any space adventure.

Jupiter Ascending may not the best entry in the Wachowskis' filmography, but it is among their most visionary. That's saying something.

I liked it. I didn't LOVE it, but I think by now it's clear that I'm the Wachowskis' target audience. (Although I still hate MATRIX RELOADED.)Personally I think they went for an intentional 80s SciFi and Fantasy popcorn movie vibe, but without any lame or destracting nostalgia. In front of my inner eye I can totally see those lizard guys as stop motion or the big chase through Chicago done with shitty blue screen ad thick black lines around the actors and I can't stop smiling.

Talking about that chase, it looked so real! No big swooping artificial camera moves through a CGI Chicago (Note that I'm pro CGI!), but instead it really looked like they used real helicopter shots as background, with all the physical rules that apply to footage that was shot from a helicopter. (Although knowing the Wachowskis, I suspect it was all CGI anyway.) As perfectly made as the action scenes were, I just wish they would have been more memorable.

What I really enjoyed were all the small touches, like how important genes were and of course the whole bureaucracy angle! The bad guys were all about finding legal ways (achieved by illegal methods) to "harvest" earth, instead of just doing it. The final act wasn't how some giant spaceships slowly approach earth and maybe destroy some big landmarks and kill the 1st 1000 people before they are stopped, it was about the villain blackmailing Jupiter into signing a contract, so that he can legally kill us all! That was pretty original if you ask me. And I love how the whole space adventure fucked up Jupiter so badly, that she just decided to go back to her normal life (with some minor benefts) instead of staying in a palace in outer space with her whole family.

So all in all it was way more enjoyable than most people say (I even enjoyed Redmayne's mega acting), but it wil probably just end up as a footnote in the Wachowskis' filmography. But I hope they will bless our multiplexes many more times with their Saturday morning cartoon/live action anime sensibilities.

Yeah, the action was pretty technically impressive. I had a hard time getting into them because I didn't really care what was happening before and after, but I would like to know how they pulled off that chase through downtown Chicago. It was very photoreal.

max, i'm curious about some of the points you raise in your review. when you compare the film to He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, are you referring specifically to the action-packed episodes like She-Demon of Phantos (Wetzler, 1983), or the levity and humor of later episodes such as No Job Too Small (Lamore, 1985) or Orko's New Friend (Schmidt, 1985). surely, however, you can't be suggesting that this film ever rises to the level of the very best Thundercats episodes. In particular, the heights of drama and excitement achieved in such episodes as The Zaxx Factor (Malach, 1989) or Lion-O's Anointment Final Day: The Trial of Evil (Starr, 1985) are truly among the finest moments achieved in '80s after-school cartoondom. if accurate, that is rarefied air indeed.

Oh fuck, Honest Trailers. Let me guess: At least 50% of the jokes are related to the look of the actors (I'm sure they have something to say about Redmayne's mouth) and/or bad puns about their names of movies they starred in years ago.

DerLanghaarige wrote:Oh fuck, Honest Trailers. Let me guess: At least 50% of the jokes are related to the look of the actors (I'm sure they have something to say about Redmayne's mouth) and/or bad puns about their names of movies they starred in years ago.

actually, 50% of that honest trailer is just a straightforward description of the film's plot.

Why the extra details?-because I could.-it was only the second film I watched on the projector (E.T. was the first, Star Wars was the third - watched that tonight)-I still have a bunch of work to do in the basement theater/family room and refuse to make the room Official (Facebook/email/etc.) until it's done.-the quality of the Amazon rental stream was shockingly awesome. I had never done that before.

So the movie - When I saw reviews were generally bad, I stopped looking into the film. I was still extremely interested based on the trailers and Wachowskis alone. I was thoroughly entertained by the film. I won't say it was a great film, because I had too many little issues, but on the whole I enjoyed it.

My issues:-We (the current planet Earth) are thrown into a massive sci-fi world full of deep mythology, diverse species, and an extremely large history.....but the viewers are just given the briefest Cliff Notes version of the world - and only as it pertains to Jupiter's story. The "Keep It Simple, Stupid" philosophy was most certainly not applied to this film. Looking at other modern epics - Star Wars, Star Trek, hell - even Game of Thrones....in each of these we aren't even given a hint as to how large their stories' worlds are in the initial offering. If Star Trek had began with a First Contact-type story, but from an Earthling-based perspective, that might come close to how I felt....but the problem with that comparison is that Star Trek was a well-known franchise by the time the films came out, and legendary by the time the Abrams reboots were released. I'm babbling and losing my point.-Costumes. What were my issues with the costumes? Mila Kunis looked like Dale Arden in the 1980 Flash Gordon film. In fact, that was the vibe I got from a lot of this movie.-The Abrasax kids. My issue - the storytelling device of Jupiter encountering one at a time until she dealt with the big bad brother. I get that it showed how hands-off they were in their corporate existence, but really I just found it annoying. They set it up that there's massive friction between the three.....and then we get what we get.-The general undeveloped feeling of everything. This goes along with my first point (maybe I'm just finishing that thought), but everything in the film seemed so undeveloped. If it wasn't for the actors' performances (which I thought were overall good), so many problems with the story and characters would have been just glaring for me. But because they had Sean Bean play such a weakly developed character, I let slide the fact that they quickly glazed over his character's motivations, that his backstory and relationship to Tatum was of great importance but yet also relegated to just a few quick lines.

There was more, but I wanted to point out one thing I really liked - I really liked watching Chicago get destroyed. Seeing NYC and LA take a beating is boring as hell. Seriously. It has been done so many times now that it has lost most of its effect with me. But Chicago? That's unique, and I appreciated that.

Achievement Unlocked: TOTAL DOMINATION (Win a Werewolf Game without losing a single player on your team)

This movie was originally conceived as a trilogy, which I think contributed to that 'dense mythology, yet strangely undeveloped' feeling. Also the somewhat episodic structure of her going from sibling to sibling.